


oleander honey and rosary peas

by Iseult_Variante



Category: Modao Zushi - All Media Types, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Caretaking, Character Study, Chronic Illness, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kindness, Minor Character Death, Out-of-Sequence Storytelling, implied minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iseult_Variante/pseuds/Iseult_Variante
Summary: Someone needs to take care of Song Lan, and Jiang Yanli desperately needs the distraction of taking care of someone.
Relationships: Jiāng Yànlí & Sòng Lán | Sòng Zǐchēn, Jiāng Yànlí/Sòng Lán | Sòng Zǐchēn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: MDZS/CQL Rarepairs Exchange 2020





	oleander honey and rosary peas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



> Thank you to [hope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope) for beta reading & feedback, to [freedomworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomworm) for help with forms of address, and to [jelenedra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelenedra) for carriage research that helped me re-block a scene. Yay, them!
> 
> Also, thanks to [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe) for organizing the exchange! I was delighted to get your fun prompts. :)
> 
> I took a couple liberties with canon, specifically stretching the implied time between finding Song Lan and leaving Yiling and ignoring that it seemed like there was a servant that went with them.

They almost found out too late that Lanling had fallen.

When Jiang Yanli had first woken after leaving Yiling, she had been livid like she had never been before in her life. To have been drugged and sent away--not even consulted, as though she couldn’t be trusted to listen, as though she wasn’t worth reasoning with?

Even though it hadn’t been his fault, it had taken her most of the day to thaw toward Song Lan. It had helped that when they stopped to eat at midday he had consulted her about the route they should take. It seemed safer not to go straight through Qishan, instead skirting along the southern borders of Yunmeng and into Moling. It would be best to stay away from the main roads, avoiding other people. 

Although Song Lan hadn’t been sure about it at first--

“Are you sure you don’t mind, Jiang-guniang?”

Jiang Yanli had smiled tightly. “I’m not such a delicate flower as to mind a little camping, Song-daozhang, I’m sure it will be fine.”

\--he had taken her at her word and agreed that it seemed safest. 

But it meant that they almost found out too late. They were only days away, having finally rejoined the main roads just before the Moling-Lanling border, when they got the news that Lanling had fallen to the Wen. 

The first sign had been the refugees headed in the opposite direction.

There were so many people, in varying states of distress--injured, dirty, carrying too random a collection of possessions for travel--that it was obvious something had happened. Song Lan approached a middle-aged man who was pulling a cart with two small children.

“Xiansheng, what has happened in Lanling?”

“The Wen! They came for the Jin. Apparently Wen Ruohan wasn’t sure they would stay out of the war.”

An older man wearing the bloodstained robes of a lower-order Jin house-servant joined them. “Jin-zongzhu was completely surprised. He was torn apart by monstrous puppets and his head thrown down the stairs of the Jinlintai!”

Listening from inside the carriage, Jiang Yanli’s breath caught in her throat. She pulled aside the curtain and leaned out. “What about Jin-gongzi?”

“Dead, they say. I’m sure he went down fighting, at least--the last I saw before I ran, he’d taken down dozens of the puppets but there were just too many. He was surely overwhelmed.”

There was a rushing sound in her ears and a pressure rising in her head that she knew preceded a fainting spell. She could feel her qi flickering like a guttering candle. Distantly she could hear Song Lan thanking the men for their news. She sat back and let the curtain fall. 

***

When Jiang Yanli wakes up, she can hear her parents arguing. She hopes that her brothers haven’t come home yet--they had just headed out for a morning of archery practice when she’d started to feel a weak spell coming on. In the last month A-Xian had started growing like a weed and it was throwing off his aim, to A-Cheng’s delight. 

She must have fainted. Again.

From what she can hear of her mother’s hissed comments to her father--

“She’s weak! She’ll never be able to take care of herself…”

\--they’re arguing about her, so she thinks A-Cheng and A-Xian must still be out. They would have tried to defend her, otherwise, and her mother would have turned her ire on them instead.

Jiang Yanli sighs. She rolls over and looks out the window. She has always liked this view of the lake, but today it doesn’t calm her.

Her mother’s not entirely wrong. Her cultivation and her body are both weak. It’s not fair. She’s the eldest child of the dauntless Jiang Fengmian! The daughter of the famed Violet Spider! 

But all the same, Jiang Yanli thinks to herself, her mother’s not entirely right. She can take care of herself--she’s been doing it for years, since it first became clear that she would never be a warrior and her mother had lost interest in her. Her father loves her, she knows, but in a distant, distracted way. She’ll marry out and leave Lotus Pier, and he knows it. 

She’s been taking care of herself; she’s been taking care of her brothers, as best she can, trying to protect them from their parents’... issues.

It’s unfilial, she knows, to think this way. And she tries to be a good daughter, even if she’s a disappointment as a cultivator. But she has slowly been coming to realize that she has to do what she can to protect herself, too. If she gives up on herself, who will be there to look after her brothers?

She isn’t much, but she’s the only sister they have.

Her mother’s voice gets quieter and more distant--her father must have started to retreat toward their private rooms, either trying to get away from the argument or trying to get her mother away before her brothers return and Jiang Yanli wakes up. 

Jiang Yanli sits up carefully. She takes a deep breath and tries to circulate her qi, such as it is. It responds sluggishly, but it responds. A gentle stream rather than the rushing torrent typical of her family. A candle, not a torch. She feels… tired, and a little weaker than usual, but in a way that is familiar. She sighs and stands up slowly, just in case, but her legs seem steady enough. 

She does what’s becoming a habit when she wants to be left alone--she retreats to the kitchens. Her mother doesn’t deign to come here, and her father wouldn’t think to. She thinks that A-Cheng and A-Xian would know to look for her here if they really need her, but they haven’t yet.

The kitchen staff treat her with a deference tempered with familiarity. They bustle around like bees, activity ramping up as lunchtime approaches, an organized chaos that Jiang Yanli finds comforting. If it is a little eccentric for the daughter of the clan leader to want to cook with her own hands, then it is more than a little eccentric for her to want to help with even the menial steps of preparation. But they have gotten used to her. 

The senior cook comes over to greet her, bowing. “Jiang-guniang, what can we do for you this afternoon?” She’d been an undercook when Jiang Yanli was little, and had let her hide in the kitchen with A-Cheng and A-Xian when their parents fought. Now her hair is beginning to streak with silver and she’s starting to squint nearsightedly.

“Oh, nothing in particular. If… if there’s anything I could help with…?”

“Of course, of course! Why, I was just thinking that it would be nice to have some pork rib and lotus root soup on hand for tomorrow. Yours is even better than mine, now, so I’ll leave it in your hands.”

Jiang Yanli smiles. It is nice to be good at _something_ even if it’s not what others might choose for her.

***

Someone needs to take care of Song Lan, Jiang Yanli decides. Wen-guniang and A-Xian are working so hard taking care of A-Cheng and on their research, and Wen-gongzi is working so hard taking care of them in turn. Jiang Yanli has been doing what she can as well, of course--she is making sure everyone is fed, coaxing them to eat, to sleep--but aside from that she can’t really fix anything. She has mostly come to terms with her limitations as a cultivator, but she has been feeling her usual helplessness especially keenly since the fall of Lotus Pier.

Song Lan is a problem she can, if not solve, then at least contribute meaningfully toward improving. Song Lan is quiet and he doesn’t want to bother anyone, so aside from his daily medical check-ups he’s been left quite alone. Without his sight and without anything to do but wait until Wen Qing says he can take the bandages off of his eyes, the days must be very long.

It’s not good, having such long, empty days after so much traumatic upheaval. Jiang Yanli should know.

Someone needs to take care of Song Lan, and Jiang Yanli desperately needs the distraction of taking care of someone.

Wen Qing had given Song Lan his own house in the little compound, and Jiang Yanli finds him sitting on the small porch outside. She calls out to him as she approaches, given that he can’t see her coming.

“Song-daozhang! May I join you?”

He startles just a little, and turns his head toward her. He stands to bow to her. “Jiang-guniang! Of course.”

Jiang Yanli climbs the two steps up. “Thank you. Please, let’s sit.” She sits down and smooths her hands over her lap, adjusting the fall of her skirts.

It seems rude to stare at him when he can’t see her, so she looks out into the courtyard. “I wanted to see if there was anything you needed, Song-daozhang. I’m sure Wen-guniang is taking care of your medical needs, but I wondered if you might be a bit… bored? I thought I might offer to read to you, if you wanted, but they don’t have many books here that aren’t medical texts.”

Song Lan huffs a quiet laugh. “That’s very kind of you, Jiang-guniang, thank you for thinking of me.”

“We could take a walk, if you like? I’m sure it would be nice to move around, to stretch your legs, and I would be happy to lend my arm to guide you.” Jiang Yanli almost mentioned that she’d done so before, for the senior cook who had lost her sight to age, but then she remembered that the old woman had likely been killed in the sacking of Lotus Pier and she had to stop to collect herself with a choked breath.

“Jiang-guniang?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Would you like to walk?”

Song Lan hesitates. He rubs his hands over each other. “I would very much like to walk, if you don’t mind, Jiang-guniang. I am not used to staying so still all day.”

“Of course!” Jiang Yanli stands and steps closer to Song Lan, “If you’ll stand up, Song-daozhang?”

He stands, and Jiang Yanli is struck by how tall he is, taller even, she thinks, than her A-Xian and A-Cheng, and broader. He has been so quiet and still since they found him that it’s not obvious that he is so physically imposing. He reaches out, hesitantly. 

Jiang Yanli narrates her actions, “I’m going to take your hand and place it on my arm, is that alright?”

Song Lan takes a breath. “Yes, thank you.”

Jiang Yanli does as she had said, and then continues, “If we take three steps to the left, we’ll be at the top of the steps. It’s two steps down, and then the path is quite flat and even.”

They make their way off the porch slowly but as they walk through the compound Song Lan seems to get more comfortable. Jiang Yanli narrates each turn, but otherwise they don’t speak. From what she has observed, and from what she recalls of A-Xian and A-Cheng’s story about the capture of Xue Yang, Song Lan isn’t a man of many words. That’s fine. There aren’t many people in the Yiling Supervisory Office, so it is peaceful. The wind blows through the trees, rustling the leaves.

“If you like, Song-daozhang, I would be happy to come and walk with you until Wen-guniang says that your bandages can come off.”

“That is very kind of you, Jiang-guniang,” Song Lan angles his face down toward her, “but I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

Jiang Yanli looks up at him and tries a light laugh. It doesn’t sound entirely convincing, but she pushes through it, “Oh, it’s no trouble, Song-daozhang. Really, with A-Xian, Wen-guniang, and Wen-gongzi working so hard on their research for A-Cheng, I find myself...” _With too much time to think. Thinking too much._ “...in need of company.”

Song Lan seems to consider that for a moment before he hums in agreement. “In that case, I am happy to help. I… suspect we are both in need of company.” His voice has a terrible sort of empathy in it, and he very gently tightens the clasp of his hand on her arm.

Jiang Yanli has the awful thought that she’s glad he can’t see her because it takes her a moment to control her expression. “Thank you, Song-daozhang.” Her voice still wavers a little; she swallows and tries again. “Now, tell me, what would you like for dinner tonight?” She brings her hand up and lays it gently over his on her arm.

Song Lan smiles down at her, just a little. Jiang Yanli counts it as a victory.

***

They had turned around and joined the stream of refugees back past the border into Moling, before breaking away and retracing their steps along less traveled routes. Song Lan had suggested getting as far away from the border as possible and then stopping to regroup. She appreciated that he’d asked, but Jiang Yanli had simply nodded; she didn’t have any better ideas.

They reach their previous campsite sooner than they really need to stop for the day, but Song Lan nevertheless guides the carriage off the road and into the trees to hide it. They hadn’t encountered any Wen forces so far, but better to be safe than sorry. 

Song Lan unhitches the horse and starts setting up camp. Jiang Yanli climbs out of the carriage and leans against the side, watching him. Ordinarily she would have helped, clearing out the firepit they had used before and unpacking the supplies they would need for the evening. But she is… numb. Tired. Weak. Her qi is still ebbing and flowing uneasily.

She can feel her tears leaking slowly, but she can’t stop them. She wonders how many more she has before her eyes dry out entirely. Her parents murdered. Her clan and her home destroyed. Her brothers having abandoned her. Now this. Poor Jin-gongzi. _A-Xuan._ And Luo-guniang wouldn’t have left him, so she is most probably dead as well.

“Jiang-guniang?” Song Lan is standing a pace away. The expression on his face as he looks down on her is a little lost, but mostly sad. She doesn’t know how long he’s been there--he seems to have finished taking care of the horse and clearing out the fire pit, so she has lost some time.

“I’m sorry, Song-daozhang,” She wipes her face and tries to clear her mind. She starts to stand up from where she’s slumped against the carriage, “Let me--”

“Ah, no, Jiang-guniang,” he holds out a hand to forestall her, and then comes forward and catches her when she stumbles, her knees weaker than she realized.

She tries to pull away, but her legs won’t won’t hold her. “I’m sorry, it’s fine, I just need to sit down for a moment--”

Song Lan catches her by the forearms as they both collapse kneeling in the shelter of the carriage. The trip from Yiling has been long, and this isn’t the first time that Song Lan has helped Jiang Yanli through a weak spell, although this is certainly the worst he would have seen. Jiang Yanli comforts herself with the knowledge that the caretaking hasn’t been entirely one-sided: on the nights that Song Lan had woken them both crying out from terrible nightmares, Jiang Yanli had coaxed him into letting her sit up with him, holding his hand until he stopped shaking and they could go back to sleep.

Song Lan only hesitates for a moment before he pulls her in, turning so his back is braced against the wheel of the carriage and Jiang Yanli is tucked under his arm.

“I’m sorry, Song-daozhang, I know you don’t like to…”

“It’s alright, Jiang-guniang.” He doesn’t seem to be holding himself too stiffly, and indeed as they settle he runs a comforting hand down her arm to take her hand. “I don’t mind. I’m getting used to us helping each other, after all.”

Jiang Yanli finds that she doesn’t have the energy to do anything but take him at his word. She gives in and leans her head against his shoulder. She’s still crying; she can’t seem to stop.

Song Lan is a solid, steady presence around her, not asking for anything or imposing, just letting everything be. From this close he must be able to sense how her qi is circulating so irregularly, but he doesn’t say anything. She can sense his qi, so strong, but soothing in its way--like a balm on a burn. She closes her eyes and tries to match her breathing to his. 

They sit together in silence, listening to the sounds of the forest.

“You remind me of him, a little.” Song Lan says, quietly, his voice a rumble in his chest under her ear.

“Of who?”

“Of Xiao Xingchen.”

Jiang Yanli snorts inelegantly, she can’t help it. “I remind you of Xiao Xingchen?”

She can hear an answering smile in his voice. “Yes. I told you before. You’re kind, like him. Kindness matters, Jiang Yanli. It’s hard to be kind in this world.” He sighs. “It takes its own strength.”

***

Jiang Yanli sits in uncomfortable silence in the main receiving room of Lotus Pier, drinking tea with her A-yi. 

Things had been tense, even before her A-yi’s arrival. Her parents had been fighting about A-Xian again. Her father had made it clear that he was planning to send him to Gusu in two years' time, when A-Cheng was of age to attend.

Her mother had been growing steadily more impatient with her sister’s courtly conversation--that is to say, gossip--all afternoon. Yu Ziyuan has never cared overmuch for diplomacy and soft power, Jiang Yanli knows; she had given her daughter a cursory introduction to the basics before leaving her to books and tutors who were much more helpful in advancing her education. 

It was nearly inevitable that something would set Yu Ziyuan off. Her sister’s winking story about infidelity among the Jin sets off a rant about people who talked poison behind others’ backs that culminates in her mother storming out. 

There is an odd silent interplay as Jinzhu and Yinzhu exchange a look. They bow to her A-yi, who nods back, and then they follow after her mother.

Her A-yi sighs and sets down her cup.

“This daughter is sure Yu-furen didn’t mean it,” Jiang Yanli starts.

“Ah, no, A-li.” Her A-yi smiles. “She meant it--your mother always means what she says and says what she means, even if she regrets it later. Besides, she’s not entirely wrong.”

Jiang Yanli isn’t sure what to say to that. Her A-yi sits up, and Jiang Yanli has the strangest impression that she is seeing a mask fall away. Gone is the frivolous socialite, and in her place...

Her A-yi looks her over with a critical eye. Jiang Yanli is shocked that she recognizes the expression--it’s the same look as her mother gives when appraising disciples on the training grounds. 

“Your mother has been remiss in your training, I see. We shall have to catch up.”

“I-- I don’t--” Jiang Yanli sets her cup down with trembling hands and bows her head. “A-yi, this humble one’s cultivation is weak. I will never be a warrior like the great ones of Meishan Yu.”

Her A-yi isn’t a warrior either, so she isn’t sure--

“A-li, just as a warrior carries more than one weapon, a clan should have more than one way to fight. The Meishan Yu clan knows that not everyone has your mother’s strengths.”

She leans forward and takes Jiang Yanli’s hands in her own. Jiang Yanli gasps and looks up to meet her eyes. She can feel her A-yi’s qi; it is like her own, a gentle stream rather than a rushing torrent.

Her A-yi lets go of her hands and sits back and picks up her tea again. She takes a sip, and looks out across the water. Her expression and posture change, becoming the frivolous socialite again. “The story I was telling about Jin-zongzhu’s biao di. Did you hear about what happened to him? His wife poisoned him, can you imagine?”

Jiang Yanli scrambles to recover, picking up her own tea and forming her face into a politely interested mask. This, at least, she has practice at. “Ah, no! So shocking! But isn’t it difficult to poison a strong cultivator?”

“Well, I don’t know that he was such a strong cultivator, given his lifestyle.” Her A-yi raises an eyebrow and sips delicately at her tea. “Regardless, I heard that she had been planning it for quite some time.” She widens her eyes as though in delighted horror, “She had a special apiary, with bees that fed on oleander. She enhanced the effect of the oleander on the honey with subtle applications of qi, apparently, and then poisoned her husband over a matter of months, so slowly that he didn’t realize until it was too late.”

“How terrible!” Jiang Yanli puts on a shocked look. “But what happened to her afterwards?”

“She ran off to become a rogue cultivator, they say! I suppose she thought avenging her honor was worth throwing it all away. I can’t imagine.” Her A-yi sighs, sips her tea, and smirks a little, “Certainly I would make sure that any revenge I took wouldn’t require such a sacrifice.”

Jiang Yanli hides a smile in her own tea. “A-yi is very wise.”

***

Jiang Yanli is in Wen Qing’s workroom angrily sorting through plants and cuttings, bundling them for drying, preparation, and storage, when Song Lan finds her.

A-Cheng is sleeping. Well, he had snapped at her and then rolled over and said he was going to sleep, anyway. The Wens and A-Xian have gone off to find some clue as to the path to Baoshan Sanren’s mountain. 

Jiang Yanli has been left behind. She’s been left behind and given work to busy her hands. She is grateful--she does appreciate having something useful to do, and preparing and storing these supplies is helpful, will be a small fraction of repayment of what they owe to Wen Qing and Wen Ning for saving and sheltering them. But...

Jiang Yanli is angry. She knows they are planning something! Something to do with A-Cheng’s care, something risky, if she knows A-Xian at all, which she does. A-Cheng is broken and A-Xian is burning himself out to fix it, and they won’t let her help!

Her hands clench around a cutting of yu xing cao, the tiny white flowers trembling. She presses her lips together and takes a calming breath, relaxing her fingers one-by-one, setting the cutting aside and pressing her hands down flat on the preparation table.

Song Lan has also been left behind. It has been six days since they had found him, and Wen Qing had taken off his bandages yesterday, happy with his progress. He is still supposed to wear the bandages at midday, when the light is brightest, but otherwise his recovery is nearly complete.

“May I join you, Jiang-guniang?” Song Lan asks from the doorway.

Jiang Yanli straightens up from where she had been leaning over the preparation table, turning toward him and doing her best to smile. Now that he can see her, she will have to try harder to keep up appearances. She dips into a shallow bow of greeting to give herself a little more time to adjust the expression on her face.

Song Lan pauses. She can feel him looking at her. She wonders what he is thinking. 

They have been walking together each day for the last several days, and Song Lan has kept her company while she cooked. She has tried to coax him into telling her more about himself with some success--she knows now about his youth at the temple, and about his first meeting with Xiao Xingchen--but there seem to be no safe conversational paths. His family at the temple massacred, and his dreams with Xiao Xingchen lost. For her part, his sincere condolences on the loss of her parents and sect and home nearly brought her to tears again. This is what they have in common, to bring them together: grief.

Jiang Yanli knows that his reputation is one of aloofness--the distant snow and cold frost, as they say--but she doubts that anyone who says that has spent much time in his company. Jiang Yanli knows people, and how to understand their needs, and she has spent several days now with Song Lan. He’s quiet, but not because he’s disinterested. He is the type who finds people difficult, like her A-Xian’s Lan er-gongzi. It takes him some time to assess, to trust, to warm up. It makes her heart ache, to think how difficult it must be for him to have lost his family at the temple, and to have lost Xiao Xingchen.

She holds onto that feeling--wanting this lost, lonely man to be less alone--and uses it to smile more warmly at him as she rises. “I would be happy for the company, Song-daozhang.”

He seems to study her face for a moment before looking down at the preparation table strewn with supplies. As he continues forward into the room, he asks, a little hesitantly, “Is there anything I can do to help, Jiang-guniang?”

Jiang Yanli considers the table before her and the room around her, humming in thought. One of the things she’d managed to get Song Lan to tell her about himself was that he doesn’t like unclean things. There is a pot of rosary peas that she had boiled earlier and set aside to cool; they would be ready to be hung to dry. 

“Here, Song-daozhang,” Jiang Yanli waves him over, “please bring this pot over to the table.”

Jiang Yanli clears aside the yu xing cao to make room as Song Lan shifts the pot to the table. They sit, and she reaches for two needles and thread. “These are seeds they call rosary peas,” she explains, picking one out and admiring its bright red and contrasting black color. “The seeds are poisonous until they are boiled, but they are quite safe now. They need to be threaded together so we can hang them to dry.”

Song Lan nods, taking one of the needles and threading it deftly. Jiang Yanli is surprised for a moment before she reconsiders--rogue cultivators would have to be self-sufficient, and that would include tasks like mending. She threads her own needle and they begin.

They work in companionable silence and Jiang Yanli tries to find comfort in the repetitive movement of threading each seed and in Song Lan’s steady presence.

“Jiang-guniang.”

Jiang Yanli startles. Song Lan only rarely initiates conversation.

“You have been very kind, spending time with me.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, Song-daozhang--”

“Jiang-guniang.” Song Lan sighs, and puts down the string of peas he’d been working on. “It matters that you try. That you’re kind. Not everyone is.”

Jiang Yanli doesn’t know what to say. She can feel her eyes starting to sting, so she ducks her head, studying her hands where they’ve paused.

Slowly, like he’s not entirely certain she’ll accept it, Song Lan reaches out and gently covers her hand with one of his. He ducks his head to catch her eyes. “Thank you for your kindness, Jiang-guniang.”

Jiang Yanli takes a deep breath. She feels steadier. “You’re welcome, Song-daozhang.”

***

They sit together listening to the sounds of the forest until the sun sinks below the trees and the temperature starts to fall. Jiang Yanli feels wrung out, hollow, but calm. Her qi is back to its usual gentle stream. She pushes herself up from Song Lan’s chest and he lets her go, watching as she stands. He follows her up, ready, she thinks, to catch her if she collapses again. 

She had thought she had reached the bottom of herself, alone in the room of that inn they had fled to, with her parents dead and her home destroyed, wondering if her brothers would return or if they’d been captured as well. She has a similar feeling now--no safe place to go, her brothers having left her behind, attempting the impossible with no one to take care of them.

As Song Lan starts a fire and she gathers the supplies to cook their evening meal, Jiang Yanli considers what to do next. 

She could ask Song Lan to take her anywhere, couldn’t she? They could go far away, somewhere away from war and destruction. But where would be far enough? 

She could ask Song Lan to take her to her mother’s family in Meishan. But what would she do there? Wait? Wait for news of the war, news of her brothers? Even if the Meishan Yu respect her skills in a way her mother never had, a war was a time for warriors, wasn’t it?

Jiang Yanli might be weak in cultivation and in body, but she isn’t a coward. She might not be the daughter her mother wanted, but she is still filial enough to want revenge for her murdered parents, and all her murdered family and friends. 

She thinks about her brothers, attempting the impossible.

She thinks about her limits and her strengths. She thinks about being weak and underestimated. She thinks about hiding in plain sight and about meeting other people’s needs. About cooking and about poison and about what it means to care.

“Song Lan.”

He looks up at her from across the fire. 

“I would like you to take me Qishan.”

He doesn’t immediately refuse her, although he does look concerned. “Jiang-guniang,” He pauses, seeming to look for the right words. “Jiang-guniang. I promised your brothers I would protect you.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did. And I am going to Qishan.”

Song Lan searches her face. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he seems to find it. He nods solemnly, like a promise. “Then I will take you to Qishan, Jiang-guniang.”

“Good. And on the way we will listen for news of Xiao Xingchen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Plants! According to internet research: 
> 
> Oleander is poisonous, but the honey thing seems to be a myth!
> 
> Rosary peas are also poisonous but, once heat-treated, can be used in medicine. 
> 
> Yu xing cao is not poisonous, just medicinal. Another name for it is "mother's heart", which seemed to fit Jiang Yanli.
> 
> Everything is geographically possible, provided we assume what seem like plausible trade routes, although there may be some anachronisms. In particular: the name for rosary peas! Rosaries do predate the handwave-y time period, although Christianity wouldn't have made real inroads yet, hence the "they call them".
> 
> This fic has been converted for free using [AOYeet!](https://aoyeet.space)


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